


a cold glitter of souls

by corbaccio



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Frotting, Hand Jobs, M/M, Non-Penetrative Sex, Sex in PATHS, too much plot and not enough porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:35:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26579185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corbaccio/pseuds/corbaccio
Summary: Eren’s gaze slid away from Armin’s face. He looked up at the sky, craning his head so far upwards that Armin could see the tendons flex in his jaw.“It’s beautiful here,” he whispered. “It really is like something out of your book, isn’t it? Snowfields of sand. Stars like coloured rivers in the sky.”Armin said nothing.“That’s how you dreamed it, after all.” This time Eren turned to stare Armin in the eye. Something there yanked at him, an emotion too great or too difficult to speak aloud. “It’s just what you imagined.”(After Eren disappears in Liberio, it causes the Survey Corps no end of problems. And when Armin dreams, he dreams of Eren. Spoilers up to chapter 120 or so.)
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager
Comments: 20
Kudos: 187





	a cold glitter of souls

Two months. It had been two months since Eren had gone missing in Liberio. Still it filled Armin with as much frustration as it did despair. Eren was not lost, after all, nor kidnapped; rather he had chosen to disappear among the unfamiliar thronging new world, leaving them without so much as a clue. Not that it would take a genius to know where he likely was, generally speaking (pinpointing him was the trouble). Less certain were his motivations, though most everyone in the Survey Corps, including Armin himself, had their own ideas about what Eren was up to. Few of them good.

Armin and Mikasa had made their case as best they could. Hanji, along with the rest of the higher-ups, was less inclined to read his actions so charitably. And, if he were being honest, Armin could not deny the sad, secret part of him that was not quite sure of Eren’s intentions anymore. But then, so often all that Mikasa and Armin had ever had _was_ trust; and they had always trusted Eren with their own lives. Somehow that seemed more significant than trusting him with the lives of the rest of the world. 

And so—partly owing to Armin and Mikasa’s desperate defence, but mostly because what else could the Corps do—they were forced to wait. Eren would eventually take action. If not action, then at least make contact. Otherwise Paradis was doomed, and if there was one thing that Eren seemed determined to avoid at all costs, it was that. For the tiny niggle of doubt that had taken root in Armin’s stomach, he knew—yes, he _knew_ —that Eren would not betray them for Zeke. The very idea of it was impossible, unthinkable, a certainty that ran deeper than rational thought.

Waiting, however, was not so pleasant. Not when you had every senior officer, from every branch of the military, on their case each day. The threat of extinction loomed large. What if Eren had decided simply to abandon them? Armin couldn’t blame them for their concerns. Fear made fools of them all, and this wasn’t even a foolish notion. As a result, they suffered through at least one meeting every day, and Hanji was becoming increasingly frantic with them, an endless number of officials to mollify, negotiate or bargain with. Sometimes through less honourable means: meat and alcohol rations were freely exchanged, and having Niccolo on stand-by was an unexpected boon, though a necessary one with some of the crankier officers. It was almost funny to see one’s bad humour soothed by a piece of buttered lobster. (Once the shell was cracked for them, naturally.)

Armin collapsed into bed each night nearly mindless. He was sick of it, tired of it, of pen-pushing, paperwork, and rationale. Administration might have been safer than facing titans out in the field back in the day, but by god was it boring. At least you knew what titans wanted from you—namely, dinner—but humans were so much more complex, so much messier. Rumours of Zackley’s proclivities came into Armin’s mind, unbidden and unwanted, though he dare not dwell on them too long. 

Tonight was much the same as the nights that came before. Two long meetings back to back, from twelve noon to eight that evening. There had not even been a break to eat. Him, Hanji, and Onyankopon had thrown down dry bread and butter in the short break between the two conferences, scarcely stopping to breathe. Though Armin was rarely hungry these days. Anxiety churned in his stomach too viciously, too angrily. Even drinking a glass of water fast could make him nauseous. Mikasa had lost weight, too, but Armin suspected that most people wouldn’t notice. They were such minor things: the tendons in her hands were starker, her wrists narrower. The bones in her face, more apparent. Still lovely, still beautiful, but thinner. 

The image of her in his mind’s eye filled Armin with fresh irritation. Mikasa’s face that morning after Eren had disappeared—startled, tender, shaken as she so rarely was—had gutted him. In many ways Mikasa was strong, but her steel soul was built on a foundation of sand, and Eren lay beneath it. Disappearing was probably the cruellest thing he could have thought to do.

Despite his anger, though, and his misgivings, Armin missed Eren so intensely it was like he’d lost a limb. The phantom sense of his presence—as an amputee feels pain in a missing leg, or reaches with the hand he no longer has—meant Armin often found himself scanning rooms for Eren’s dark head. His lean profile in parallel with Levi’s as they spoke; or perhaps his eyes, now sometimes wide and mad-seeming, but familiar enough to steady Armin’s nerves. 

Eren’s stare had such power. At least, it had such power over Armin. A stare that froze him, scalded him, just as much as it brought comfort. He saw Eren’s eyes in his dreams. Even when he could scarcely recall the dream itself, the impression of them remained: cool grey burning a hole through his flesh as though it were mere parchment. Eren had always been able to do that—knock him six feet aside with the solitary strength of his gaze, whether happy, angry, or heartbroken—but damn these dreams. They made him feel so lost, so empty. A gnawing ache he could not shake, no matter what Armin tried. 

Sleep had become a dread thing, though Armin was so tired that it was irresistible once his head hit the pillow. It used to be that he was exhausted enough that no dreams would come at all, but now they persisted. No amount of hot tea or milk or toddies, or meditative thoughts before bed, or stretching or screaming or chewing herbs could settle his mind long enough for a dreamless sleep. It was making him bitter. It was making him angry. Armin felt increasingly less like himself and more like an animal, itching in his own skin, some unknowable energy manifesting in his blood.

And thus, he dreamt. And he let them wash over him like so much water, never grasping nor forgetting quite enough to find peace. Though he knew that nearly every night, he dreamt of Eren.  
  


* * *

  
The room was illuminated by the light of the fire and two lanterns: one his side of the desk, the other at Hanji’s. The light given off by the shining stones was more consistent, but they found it too bright, too jarring this late in the evening when their eyes already stung from reading and writing for hours at a time. Armin preferred the glow of firelight, anyway. In the warm dark of Hanji’s office, it could almost be cosy.

The meeting with Commander Pixis had gone well. He was sympathetic though not condescending, and Armin still felt a silly little thrill of pride when the man recognised him. Most often it was just a subtle nod, the slightest smile, the same gesture he offered Armin every time they crossed paths since all those years ago in Trost. Armin felt like a child in senior meetings despite how often and how closely he worked with Hanji these days, but Pixis’ acknowledgement never failed to grant him new confidence.

Of course, that it had gone well didn’t mean that it had gone perfectly. Pixis had voiced concerns—his own, that of the captains within the Garrison, and some he’d heard from his influential contacts in Mitras. It had not taken them by surprise, but to hear it spoken so frankly was painful and awkward. Especially when Hanji had responded with equal honesty. No, they did not know where Eren was. No, they had no plan to find him. No, they did not know his intentions, only that he had left of his own volition.

That final admission in particular always roused the room. Disbelief that would then shift to anger. Humanity’s greatest hope had abandoned them, after all the time, resources, and lives spent keeping him safe. When Armin heard those complaints—for people always whispered at a shout these days—he wanted to hit something, even if just the table. Eren had sacrificed so much for Paradis, too; sometimes it felt even his soul, even his sanity, had been willingly offered. 

(Once, Armin had found Eren reading through casualty records in the Survey Corps archive. Silent, hardly breathing, his mouth making the shape of countless names that had died in service in the last four years. Armin had not had the courage to disturb him, lurking hopelessly in the doorway until he could not stand to watch anymore. And if it had hurt him, god only knew how it pained Eren.)

The memory of it now made his chest go tight. Armin understood, much better than he used to, just how the weight of a life could crush you. The thought drew his gaze towards Hanji across the desk. Despite the hour, they continued in the same cool, concentrated way they always did in the safety of their office. They weren’t unflappable, no, but Armin was more often amazed at their decorum considering the situation. He saw how Eren’s name made their jaw clench, hackles raising. Anger managed behind a neutral easy-going manner, most likely for the 104th’s sake. 

Their exhaustion was worse than Armin’s own, he’d guess, by the mottled purple marks beneath their eye—but still they were sharp. Hanji caught his gaze as soon as it landed on them. In one swift movement, they lowered their pen, removed their glasses, and scrubbed their face as though they had read Armin’s thoughts.

“Tired?” they asked, their voice much quieter than it had been throughout the day. “You look awful.”

Armin grimaced. He’d developed multiple nervous habits over the space of these two months, most of them re-emerging from childhood: biting his nails, pulling at his hair, chewing his cheek until it hurt to consume anything other than water. He touched the crown of his head self-consciously, feeling his hair in wild disarray and patting it down. 

If Hanji had seemed in a decent humour, he would have said, _And you look none better._ But it felt especially inappropriate when it was Eren causing them such head- and heartache. So he simply nodded. 

“Yes. I don’t think anyone has been sleeping very well lately.”

Hanji exhaled a long, loaded sigh, as though they’d been holding it in all day. “I don’t think I’ve slept more than four hours in one go since…” They paused, apparently in genuine thought. “Well, in recent memory.” They smiled wryly. “No wonder we’re a bunch of screwballs, huh?”

Armin tried to smile back, though it felt pallid and watery. “I don’t think any of us started off all that sane anyway.”

Hanji let out a short bark of a laugh. “True, true.” They considered Armin, a probing look that could peel back his skin. “You should go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

This was usually how it happened. Armin knew that Hanji would have no problem at all if he left once their debriefing was over, but Armin never wanted to. Leaving before exhaustion made him brainless would only mean lying in bed, tossing and turning, Eren on his waking mind as much as his unconscious one. Though at this time of night, the paperwork was not getting done, not really. Armin had been shuffling between the same two files for the past ten minutes, hardly seeing them, never mind comprehending them. 

Anyway, when Hanji said that, it was more an order than it was genuine concern. Armin gathered his work into one neat pile and set it to the side. He resisted the urge to yawn.

“Thank you, Commander.” He stood, stretched, and saluted; it felt slightly absurd in his rumpled state, shirt untucked and sleeves folded up to his elbows. “You should consider turning in soon, too.”

All Hanji offered was another half-smile. With their glasses removed, it was clearer still how it didn’t reach their eyes. “Of course, of course. Promise I will. Now, shoo!”

Armin shooed. He shut the door very carefully behind him, and as he caught one final glimpse of the commander, he saw nothing other than sad, tired despair: Hanji’s head had dropped, not watching Armin but instead the desk, their hair falling over their face from its snarled ponytail.

This late at night, Armin never ran into anybody. The senior barracks were quiet and warm with sleeping bodies when he arrived. He still felt relief that they no longer slept in bunks, and their beds were larger than those meagre cots. It was a small luxury to be able to spread one’s limbs, to have the space to roll over into a cooler spot on long summer nights. Now Armin could not imagine sleeping in lesser conditions. 

He undressed quickly, changed into his nightclothes, and slipped beneath the covers. Already he could feel it, the deadweight of sleep, its crawling blackness promising oblivion. Oblivion, pah. Even his dreams allowed Armin no peace.

Still, it was inevitable. His bones ached, though he had done little else than sit in various chairs, at various tables, most of the day. He suddenly wanted the familiar pattern of drills very badly, the easy mindless concentration of giving in to your physical self; how naturally the ground went out beneath you, the strange comfort of the manoeuvre gear bracing your flesh, clearing the crap from your nostrils after a long session flying through the air… _Free protein_ , Jean had joked when Armin once half-inhaled a crane fly.

Sleep came.  
  
  
  
It was night-time in the dream, as in real life, but overhead the stars shone in impossible rippling streaks. Almost solid ribbons of light. It hurt to look at them. There was no breeze to speak of, perhaps even no temperature at all. It was surreally ambient, as if Armin could wear five layers or none and be equally comfortable. As it was, he saw that he was wearing what he had slept in: loose trousers worn to butter-softness from countless washes, a blue cotton shirt he’d bought in Karanes two years ago. That it still fit was frustrating; Armin had hoped to grow a little more since then. At least he was saving money. At one point, Connie had been buying a new wardrobe every four months, his harness forever being sent for readjustment. 

Looking down at his feet—bare—he saw that the ground was not solid earth but rather sand. So pale it nearly glowed in this strange starlit place. It surrounded him in gentle sloping dunes. When Armin wriggled his toes, it felt as real as any beach. The place was alien and yet familiar, some ancient memory singing in Armin’s blood. 

A column of light rose from the horizon into the sky. It resembled a wintering tree; at its top, white branches reached out like frozen lightning. It pulsed as he watched it, the light intensifying in time with Armin’s breathing. It was odd—it didn’t seem to give off light as a lantern would, but it stung his eyes to look at it directly. It illuminated this world like a sun, albeit with a ghostly heatless glow. 

As Armin stared, he could see something at the base of the column. A dark shape coalescing, the light burning out its silhouette to a mere slip. It was moving, the form becoming more distinct the longer Armin watched, the closer it came. It was a person. Armin squinted, his eyes watering. A man. Even from here he could tell he was taller, broader than Armin himself was. 

It struck him very suddenly. Perhaps it was the rhythm of his gait, or that his hair, long, dark and loose, was now recognisable. Armin’s pulse thrummed, though in his bones a part of him had known—had always known. It was Eren. It could only be Eren.

His miserable anticipation in the waking world was completely forgotten. Here, in this peculiar place, Armin’s most immediate reaction was warm pleasure. It suffused him, as a boy who sees a friend after so long apart: the childish urge to break into a run and meet him on his way. But his feet wouldn’t move. Armin stayed anchored where he stood, able only to watch, and wait, as Eren drew nearer.

Once he could make out Eren’s face—his mild expression, an enigmatic half-smile—Armin’s paralysis broke. He did not run. Instead he jogged awkwardly over, the sand soft and uneven enough that he stumbled but did not stop. Eren continued to walk, silent, steady. An inevitable kind of progress. 

They were face-to-face. Armin breathed hard despite the short distance he’d just covered. Looking at Eren now, his face still so guileless, so honestly bland, filled him with new anger. It overrode his nostalgic excitement in an instant.

“What are you doing?” he asked. Armin wasn’t even sure what he meant when he said it—what was Eren doing _here_? Or was he asking Eren if the dream was his doing? Or perhaps it was more than that. _Why did you leave. How could you. Just what is going through that mind of yours, because I feel like I don’t know you half as well as I thought I did._

He did not qualify himself. The question hung in the air as Eren studied him, his gaze tender in a way that it had not been for a long time. Armin's heart quickened a little beneath his scrutiny. 

Eren shrugged. He chose to take the most literal interpretation of Armin’s question. “I’m here to see you.” He held his arms out, as if that were evidence enough.

Armin looked at him, and then around him. The scenery was the same strange dream scenery, the sky unchanging. No wind stirred their hair. A soft sound, like rustling leaves or water ebbing and flowing, filled the air though there were neither trees nor ocean. Only endless shifting sand. 

“Where are we?” Armin said, finally. It was a stupid thing to ask—this was a dream. They would be wherever his mind had chosen to think up; this wasn’t even one of the stranger environments he’d dreamt. But somewhere, deep in his bones, it did not feel like he had created this place.

Eren cast his gaze around as Armin had. His expression stayed the same, and his voice too when he spoke, as though he did not find their surroundings in any way remarkable. “I don’t think I could explain it to you right now, but it’s a safe place. There’s only us here.”

That much was obvious. There wasn’t anywhere for anyone to hide, no structures, no greenery, unless someone was lying beneath the crest of a dune. Acres and acres of nothingness stretched out in every direction.

Armin shook his head. “This is a dream anyway,” he muttered, more to himself than to Eren. 

But Eren heard him, and his head jerked upright at the words.

“Is it?”

Armin frowned. “Sorry?”

“Is this a dream?”

The simple question made his palms sweat. Of course it was a dream. Though, Armin’s dreams did not usually argue the point; and the Eren of his dreams usually acted more or less how Armin expected him to. This version of Eren was different, if only slightly. He gave Armin the same subtle sense of unease that his real-world self did, their long familiar history at odds with some new strangeness. Armin was not quite sure what would come out of Eren's mouth next.

Perhaps his subconscious was just becoming more precise in its characterisation. Armin scoffed internally. For god’s sake, he was asleep. Last he remembered, he had the blanket folded between his clammy thighs, one hand pulling the pillow over his head to deaden the sound of someone’s snoring. What was this meant to be, if it was anything other than a dream?

He steeled his words with fresh resolve. “Of course it is,” he said. “If I pinched myself, I would wake up.”

Some amusement filtered into Eren’s voice. “Right, right. Why don’t you, then? Pinch yourself.”

Armin could not remember the last time Eren had been… well, so playful. Not in recent memory; maybe not even within the last three years. His mind must have been especially nostalgic. Armin made a pincer with his thumb and forefinger, but he did not move to pinch himself. Honestly, he did not want to wake up at all, and how intensely the feelings came to him now he recognised them. Yes, he wanted to be here. With Eren, for as long as the night would allow. Days, weeks, years could pass in a dream, couldn’t they? Armin would likely forget everything that happened here, and no one else would know about this indulgence anyway. 

When was the last time it had been him and Eren, alone together? Without time pressure, people pressure, the weight of a thousand eyes and a thousand expectations forever on them? 

Armin did not say these thoughts out loud. He folded his arms over his chest. 

Eren was suddenly very close. “I could do it for you,” he said softly. Before Armin could react, Eren grabbed his wrist and pulled his arm out between them. Slowly, he unbuttoned the cuff of Armin’s shirt and folded it back until his sleeve gathered at his elbow. His forearm lay exposed between them, the flesh of his wrist turned upwards. Armin swore he could see his pulse flickering in the veins that stood proud there. Eren stroked his thumb over them.

Armin could not breathe. He swallowed hard. He meant to ask, again, _just what are you doing_ , but he was afraid to speak in case his words broke the strange spell that bound them. Eren watched his face, but then lowered his gaze. His free hand went to the tender skin of Armin’s inner elbow and, without hesitation, he gave it a quick and vicious twist.

“Ow!” Armin said, but he did not snatch his arm back. He rubbed the sore spot unhappily, watching the flesh redden.

Eren smiled. “You’re still here.”

Why did Armin blush? It made no sense to him, but still hot colour filled his face. “It only works if you do it to yourself.”

“Is that so,” Eren said, so wisely, so coolly, that it only made Armin blush harder. In the face of such easy calm, his reply felt juvenile. And Eren had yet to let go of his wrist, holding it in his left hand. Long, strong fingers, larger than Armin’s own, and warm enough that he could feel himself sweating in Eren’s grip. They circled his wrist easily.

Armin sighed. He took a moment, steadying his pulse, his racing thoughts. He searched his mind for a riposte but found none other than the urge to throw the question back in Eren’s face. 

“So, what? You’re saying this is real?” 

Eren shrugged again, just one shoulder, his own reply apparently unimportant. “Why wouldn’t it be? Is that so hard to believe?”

Armin did not resist the scoff that burst out of him, an incredulous laugh. He pulled his arm from Eren’s grip—he let him go easily—and gestured at the insane environment around them, like nothing on this living world.

“Should it be easy?” he said, and then weaker, again to himself rather than to Eren: “This is hardly new. I always dream about you.”

Eren looked taken aback for the first time. He blinked hard, as if to push the surprise beneath the calm façade he’d managed up till now. But something had shifted in his expression, and his voice—that Armin knew so well—revealed more than his face would allow. “About me? Really?” Eren said. He fell silent, seeming to think, a crease forming between his eyebrows. He looked effortlessly, unbelievably beautiful. “I’m sorry.”

 _What for_ , Armin nearly said, and in his mind he heard how he would say it: acidly, bitterly, because his heart hurt in an ugly, selfish way. It was the apology Armin had wanted, sort of. So many times over the past few weeks he had imagined Eren returning, some of his old self evident in his manner as he apologised. To Mikasa, to him, to the Survey Corps. It was never a satisfying fantasy; it never made enough sense, logic falling away in favour of raw self-indulgence. Thinking that he would come back having undergone some miraculous change—frankly it was an embarrassing thing to suppose. 

It was nothing like this, anyway. Eren might have been contrite, but he was still Eren changed, as he had become after their return to Shiganshina. Armin’s imagined apologies were so pathetic that sometimes in them Eren had short hair, or his fifteen-year-old voice. Sometimes his left arm was severed at the elbow, blood leaching up his sleeve until it darkened the collar of his shirt. Bitten clean off. A wretched, rotten part of Armin would summon it from the depths of his memory, as if to make its inarguable point: Eren threw himself into a titan’s mouth for you, how could you not believe in him?

Eren’s face had returned to its sombre stillness. As Armin watched him, he turned away. From this angle, the rise of his cheek, his brow, gave nothing away. Armin felt the near-irresistible urge to grab at him, for confrontation, but as he raised his arm Eren flopped down on to the ground.

“Sit with me,” he said, and he patted the space next to him.

Armin's frustration receded. Weary curiosity took its place. It was a familiar feeling, letting Eren pull him every which way on a whim, always yielding to his enthusiasm. So, duly, Armin lowered himself on to the ground. There was sand clinging to his feet, between his toes.

“You said that this was a dream, right?” Eren went on, his voice so quiet that Armin hardly heard him even in the silence. “Well. If it’s dream, then it doesn’t matter what happens.”

He wore a strange expression. Pensive, almost, a frown twisting his gentle smile. Armin wondered what he was thinking. He used to be able to tell, or at least make a decent guess. Now he had no idea whatsoever what thoughts ran through that head. 

“Right,” Armin said, because the pause went on too long and meant too much. “None of this is real. It’s… all just in my mind.”

Eren’s gaze slid away from Armin’s face. He looked up at the sky, craning his head so far upwards that Armin could see the tendons flex in his jaw.

“It’s beautiful here,” he whispered. “It really is like something out of your book, isn’t it? Snowfields of sand. Stars like coloured rivers in the sky.”

Armin said nothing.

“That’s how you dreamed it, after all.” This time Eren turned to stare Armin in the eye. Something there yanked at him, an emotion too great or too difficult to speak aloud. “It’s just what you imagined. What you're imagining, right now.”

Then, Armin recognised it. It was the same voice Eren had when he argued there was no way Annie could be the Female Titan; the same voice he had in Stohess’ underground when Annie refused to come; when Hanji revealed their tentative suspicion about Reiner and Bertholdt; and again, when Floch said Armin should have died, and Armin had let his silence confirm his agreement.

Hopeless hope. A desperate man pleading to be believed. Armin saw it so clearly in that moment that his stomach lurched. In the real world, he had always been prepared to stand his ground, but here… here, Armin yielded to weakness. He let himself be persuaded, mostly because he wanted to be.

“Yes,” he said. It was easy to say because it wasn’t a lie, even if it didn’t feel quite like the truth, either. “You’re right. That must be why we’re here.”

At Armin’s words, he saw the tension in Eren’s shoulders loosen, some of the misery in his face abating. He wanted to believe just as much as Armin did. Of course he did: he was a facet of Armin’s own dream, after all.

But then, even as he thought it, Eren did something that he never would have expected. There wasn’t much distance between them in the first place, and in a single smooth motion, Eren rose out of his crouch and swung himself over Armin’s outstretched legs. Warmth radiated from him, the sudden closeness shocking Armin out of his thoughts. Eren, sat astride his knees as though it were a regular habit.

Armin opened his mouth, but all that came out was a mindless _huh_. And while he was stuck still processing this invasion, Eren settled a hand in the centre of his chest. So close to Armin’s pounding heart, mere inches from it. A stillness descended.

“Did you ever dream about this?” Eren asked.

A guilty, icy feeling flooded Armin’s belly. Eren’s hand was an insistent weight on his chest. He was pushing at him, pressing Armin down, down into the sand until he lay flat on his back. Armin offered no resistance, his body boneless with something near enough to fear that it might as well have been. Above him, Eren’s eyes burned like cold fire. 

The lump in Armin’s throat caught his breath, tangled his words. How could he speak out loud what he had spent so long pushing aside, swallowing down? Loving Eren had never been the problem, but it had always been more than that.

Armin lifted his forearm to cover his eyes. The sky, the stars, Eren’s face… they all glowed with an unnatural brightness, such that it hurt to look directly at them. It allowed him to speak, at least, freed from the intensity of Eren’s gaze. A bare whisper, but one he squeaked out nevertheless, because Eren was not speaking nor moving, and in this timeless endless space, he would probably wait an eternity for an answer. 

“Yeah,” Armin said hoarsely.

Because it was a dream, wasn’t it? It didn’t matter what he said here, much less what he confessed, his sad sick soul on full display. Armin surrendered to himself. This was a world of his own making, and Eren the same—maybe this was a chance for purgation, one otherwise impossible in the real world.

Eren released a long exhale. He lowered himself until Armin could sense the heat of his lap against his thighs. How hot he felt in this ambient place, so different to the indifferent air. His weight, so solid. Beneath his gaze and his straddle, Armin felt like a pinned insect, but a willing one. _Peel me open_ , he thought, _and see what you find, then, if that’s what you want._

Maybe dream Eren could read his thoughts as readily as his feelings. Armin drew back his arm from his face and lifted it instead to Eren’s waist. It was as real-seeming as the rest of him, warm cloth and firm flesh beneath. His hand barely rested there, as though scared that Eren would dissolve with physical contact. Armin had had dreams like that: Eren so close, within reach, and yet when his fingers closed around his hand, his wrist, the hem of his jacket, he would vanish just as he did that night in Liberio.

Eren did not dissolve. In fact, he laughed at Armin’s tentative touch.

“Are you afraid to touch me now?” he asked, a wry grin filling his face with light. “You never were before.”

Armin flushed despite himself. It sounded more inappropriate than it was—really, him and Eren had always been tactile, enough that it had prompted comments back in their trainee days. The memory made Armin recall just how rare it was they touched now, these last two years. Even the simple act of patting his shoulder had become impossible. An unwanted trespass. Eren had kept his distance so deliberately that incidental touches, something that Armin never used to notice (shoulder against shoulder, the brush of his hand reaching for the same thing, Eren’s breath on his cheek as they leant over a book), now felt like a terrible loss.

“A lot has changed,” Armin said, letting sadness and frustration both into his voice. “You—we’ve all changed. And anyway…” Armin diverted his gaze guiltily here. “We haven’t been working together much of late.”

It was such a meaningless thing to say. It was what you would say to a colleague you didn’t know very well, or like very much—someone like Floch with his bristling arrogance, that odd light in his eyes like he knew something Armin didn’t. He heard it in his own voice, that uncertain wariness. Even with Eren so close (quite literally, on top of him), Armin couldn’t help the uneasy feeling that itched under his skin.

It wasn’t quite suspicion, no. But it wasn’t far off from it either. 

_Come on. You’re not afraid. This is Eren. Your Eren._

Eren had gone quiet. Perhaps he really could read Armin’s mind; his eyes had taken on a bleak, pinched look, or maybe he just felt similarly unsettled by Armin’s aloof reply. A great yawning gulf had opened up between them, sometime, somehow. They had become strangers. 

Eren’s hand burned like a brand. It felt so heavy that Armin could imagine its shape impressed into his breastbone, just as sand yields to the weight of a footprint. Then, the moment passed, and Eren’s hand moved down to the hem of his shirt. Working steadily, he freed each button until he could push it back off Armin’s chest. His hand flattened against Armin’s abdomen—pulse thudding against Eren’s palm, so thickly that the artery felt like a swelling pipe—and then higher, his fingernails tracing gentle lines over his ribs, his sternum, the fine bone of his collar. 

“You don’t have any scars anymore,” Eren said, wry, wistful, and sad all at once.

Armin looked down at himself. “No, not anymore. I suppose I should be grateful.”

At ten years old Armin had received a terrible scar in the refugee camps. An accident, but someone’s hoe had gone awry—midwinter, a morning when it was too cold even for snow and wind made their fingers stupid-numb—and it had caught him right in the stomach. The wound had looked more impressive than it was serious, but it had been a difficult recovery, owing to the bitter cold, his hunger, scant medical care. It had left a nasty scar. Raised and angry-looking even several years on. 

There was nothing left of it now. Armin’s waist was as smooth and even as it was when he was born. Eren must have been remembering it, too, for his fingers grazed the spot where it used to be, just to the right of his navel. Armin shivered. The flesh was more sensitive now without scar tissue, and Eren touched him so deliberately that warmth rose beneath Armin’s skin wherever his fingers rested. As though Eren had power even over his blood.

Then, lower: Eren’s hand went to the waistband of Armin’s trousers. He fiddled with the drawstring, loosening the knot, twisting the frayed cord. The proximity of his hand to Armin’s groin made his stomach flip over itself. _Oh_ , Armin realised, heat filling his face. They were going to do this. And yes, he wanted it so badly he could die.

Did Eren sense his shifting mood, the way his breathing changed? Armin felt so transparent that his organs could well show through his skin. A lop-sided little smile came on to Eren’s face, and he let his palm rest in the centre of Armin’s lap.

“This,” Eren said, and his voice was low, certain, silky, “this is what you wanted.”

Armin could not bring himself to say yes again. Eren had torn too much out of his muddy depths already. But he did nod.

“Yeah,” Eren went on. He touched him again, with purpose, squeezing Armin’s cock through the fabric. The strength of it surprised Armin enough that he flinched. “I wanted it, too.” Eren laughed once, a dry humourless sound. He spoke to himself. “Even though it’s probably… probably too late. It’s still true.”

A question rose like acid in Armin’s throat. Too late. It flooded him with fresh terror, ice water chilling his veins. Why was it too late? What had Eren done, or what was he going to do? He held the question back behind his teeth, too afraid; afraid of what the answer would be, and afraid that if he asked, Eren would stop. _Pathetic,_ he thought. _You’d risk information that may be important enough to save the world just to get off._

But then, this was no more real than any fantasy. It would be more stupid still to base any decision on what his dreaming brain threw up. What was there to trust in misfiring synapses, his surging blood, his own biases stripped bare in such a literal way?

Eren, oblivious to Armin’s conflict either wilfully or not, continued to touch him. He had fallen silent again, and deftly his hand slipped into Armin’s trousers, seeking skin. He traced the outline of his cock through his underwear. It was a teasing touch that made Armin hiss, his hips lifting instinctively. He was hard already. His face felt hot, and hotter still when he realised Eren was studying him, an intense, searching look that bore through to Armin’s very core. The image of a pinned insect again came into his mind.

“Is this okay?” Eren said, soft and sincere, but also curious. His head tilted to one side. 

His hand was only between Armin’s thighs and yet it felt like he was touching him all over. Armin could only nod again. It must have given Eren renewed courage, for he stopped his gentle teasing and tugged Armin’s trousers and underwear down his thighs. The sudden exposure should have made Armin blush, but he didn’t. His cock bobbed against his stomach, so hard it hurt, though he felt vulnerable rather than embarrassed. If anyone could take him apart with minimal effort, it would be Eren.

“Come here,” said Armin.

Eren raised an eyebrow. He obeyed though, scooting over Armin’s lap—god, the weight and heat and solidity of his thighs so close to his erection was sheer torture—and bent over a little. Armin grabbed for the nape of his neck, fingers twisting in his hair. He could pull Eren towards him this way, and so Armin did, straining upright to kiss him. He sensed Eren’s hands come either side of him, trapping Armin to brace against the force of the kiss. 

It was a clumsy kind of kiss. Lips, teeth and tongue, and little grace, a hungry desperate thing. Armin tightened his grip, long hair snarling around his knuckles. So many things were not as Armin had imagined (because oh, how he had imagined doing this with Eren, too many times to count, to bear counting), but now that it was happening he could not care less. It was still Eren straddling his lap, caging Armin in with his limbs. It was still Eren, touching and kissing and murmuring into his mouth, with a greedy, wild, reverent look in his eyes that Armin knew so well within himself. 

“Eren,” Armin breathed into the scant space between them. “I miss you.”

He hoped that Eren didn’t notice the crack in his voice. He was not going to cry here, but his throat burned and his eyes ached in their sockets even so.

“I’m sorry,” Eren said. His eyes were closed, and the words seemed to tumble out of him involuntarily. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Armin wanted to comfort him so badly that it hurt, an actual pang in his chest. But he also knew that whatever demons Eren was facing, he was beyond Armin’s help; or, worse, he thought he was beyond help. All Armin could do was continue down this ill-conceived path, and so he kissed Eren again—harder, deeper, stealing the apology from his mouth before it could be spoken aloud.

It worked, insofar that Eren's mantra stopped, his breathing steadied. Again his focus turned back to Armin’s body. The strength of his grip around Armin’s leaking, aching cock made him gasp, though he was given little chance to adjust. Eren began to stroke him—a little too firmly, briskly—but how perfect such naked contact could feel. How distinct from his own oiled grip. Armin let out a strangled cry even as he tried to bite it back.

There were better things than words, sometimes. Armin sat up suddenly, nearly knocking their heads together. It startled a sound out of Eren, but he did not move as Armin reached for his trousers, tearing at his fly. His head was not so muddled with lust that the fastening was beyond him, and soon he had Eren’s erection in hand. The blood-heat of it shocked him, the slick firm feel of it; though he had touched himself plenty of times, it was funny how different it felt when it was somebody’s else’s body. So foreign, so exhilarating in that foreignness. 

And when he felt Eren gasp, and tremble—he would not have traded anything in the world for that. The simple holiness of his breathing, hitched and heavy, quiet pleasure stilling him. A wry thought came into Armin’s mind. Maybe this is what it would have taken to keep Eren with them, to persuade him to stay.

“Here, like this,” Eren murmured, and brought his body closer until they were nose-to-nose, chest-to-chest. With a shaking hand, he grasped their cocks together, thumb and fingers enclosing them both. Electricity shot up Armin’s spine. Hot, slick, strange, new. He had felt nothing like it before, and the tight seize of Eren’s grip around them tightened the knot in his balls.

Almost without thinking, Armin grasped blindly between them. His own hand closed around Eren’s, and the added pressure made them groan together, a frantic noise in near-perfect sync. Eren’s nose glanced his cheekbone, hot breath tickling his ear. Armin rubbed his thumb over and beneath the head of Eren’s cock, the tender skin there so sensitive, precome slicking his fingers. The extra attention disturbed Eren's rhythm. Under Armin's touch, he faltered and shook as if he were mere moments from shattering, his desperate breath drawing the air between them, a long and frantic _oh_.

He wished that Eren were naked. That he could see his chest, his stomach, his bare arms. It used to be that Armin knew Eren’s body nearly as well as his own. Sharing beds, sharing showers, watching him tear off his shirt after a hot day spent mucking out stables. The dust would cling to him, dark streaks on his already sun-dark skin. 

The hard, deliberate squeeze of Eren’s grip brought Armin back to himself. Already he was too close. It was too much. The full solid sense of Eren against him, his cock hot as fire, rutting until there was nothing, hardly even skin separating them from one another. The arousal which up till now had simmered in his belly was cresting, rising, rolling through him like tidewater. His other hand grabbed for Eren’s waist, thumb pinned to the hollow of his hip to keep him in place. As if he could always keep him there.

Armin shuddered as he came. He surrendered to the force of it, aftershocks jarring him right to the marrow of his bones. It was difficult to think in its shivering haze, but he could feel the hot, heavy line of Eren's cock still against his own, the tension that drew him up like a bowstring. He was close, too. Armin tightened his hand over Eren’s, over his erection, the added slickness from his orgasm making it easy to stroke him fast and dirty, even as the stimulation to his softening cock knocked the breath from his lungs.

It didn’t take long, not with their combined grip. The slippery erratic rhythm brought Eren to the edge and, finally, pulled him over it. Armin felt his thighs clench, his spine stiffen, a deep dark noise rising from his chest. Eren grit his teeth so hard it was barely audible. Only his breathing, raw and ragged, broke the silence.

It was perfectly still. Armin couldn’t make out Eren’s face, not with how his brow rested against his own. He wondered whether he should speak, and if so, what he should say—but something froze him. There was wetness at his temple. Even as pleasure uncoiled in his stomach, the hot wire of it loosening, Armin’s blood went cold. Eren was crying.

“We can’t go back,” he whispered. “I can’t go back.”

Armin spoke urgently, the words spilling out of him faster than he could think. “We can. It’s never too late, not for you. You can come back.” He felt the hitch of tears in his own voice again, and this time he did not swallow them down. “We’ll always wait for you, Eren. For Mikasa and I, there’s nothing… nothing you could do that we couldn’t forgive you.”

Instinct took over. Armin threw his arms around Eren's back, folding him in against his chest. Slowly, so slowly, he traced the wing-blade of Eren’s shoulders, down the arch of his spine and his tailbone, then up—over and over, again and again. He pressed his face into the crook of Eren’s neck and blinked hard, feeling moisture gather in his eyelashes. Armin wasn’t strong. He was so weak. And as Eren wept against him, Armin had never been so sure of that fact. 

It was impossible to know how much time passed, but eventually Eren’s trembling stopped. Armin’s own eyes grew sore and dry. Nothing had changed around them, but Armin knew that something had changed within him. An old wound again split open, smooth skin giving way to scar tissue giving way to raw and angry flesh. One that would not be so easily healed. 

Eren twisted in his Armin’s hold. Suddenly he pushed away from him, just enough that his stare could catch Armin with its terrible brightness—his eyes startling, a sky just before the storm, lightning over a copper sea—and he spoke with an unknown, unfamiliar flat voice.

“I’ll send a letter soon,” he said. His expression had shifted, too, blank and bizarre. 

Just as Armin felt words on his own tongue (a protest, a question, he didn’t know) something was happening. The air seemed to shimmer with heat. Armin’s head throbbed, and the hairs on his arms stood up. Pure animal fear. Not just around him but inside him, Armin felt wrong, seriously wrong, like his brain was shifted two feet to the left of his skull and was operating his limbs remotely. He had to remember to breathe. Breathe. His ribcage was an expanding bubble on the edge of bursting. Eren… He could see Eren, or maybe he was just imagining it, his face filling Armin’s thoughts like water in a vessel until it ran over.

A letter, he had said.

Too late, he had said.  
  
  
  
Armin woke as one does from a nightmare—with a huge, choking breath, chest heaving, his skin hot and cold all at once. He was sweating so fiercely that the bedsheets clung to him through his sodden clothes.

“Eren?” he said, without thinking.

The rest of the world formed around him. The air no longer shimmered. There was no glittering sky, just the chilly morning light of the senior barracks. Nobody had heard him, their sleeping shapes still and quiet in each bed. 

A dream. That’s all it was. A potent, brutal, terrible dream, the kind that chewed you up but left you whole the morning after, because a dream could not touch you when awake. Armin’s stomach churned, but he was not sick. His face was hot, but he did not cry.

He lurched out of bed. The washroom was cooler, and he splashed his face with water until his pulse slowed to a more reasonable rate. One’s own mind could be such a cruel thing. Perhaps it was just that he was so tired lately, so stressed, so afraid even of his own thoughts. It was only natural that he would have such a nightmare. 

Armin grimaced at himself. It was especially unfair that he could remember it so well in comparison to most mornings. The sense of Eren’s body, his hands, the look and feel of his bottom lip swollen with kissing. His voice, the broken grief with which he spoke, again like the child that Armin had known so well.

 _How cruel_ , he thought, _and how pointless._

Armin returned to bed, and he did not sleep.  
  


* * *

  
The letter, when it came, nearly killed him. Eren’s handwriting was as familiar as his own; there was no mistaking it. Armin could hardly hold the paper when Hanji asked him to confirm its author, hands shaking so badly he could have torn it in two. 

_I’ll send a letter soon._

It was as though the world was dissolving around him, and in its place the lucid, lurid strangeness of the dream flooded his senses. He managed to pass the letter back to the commander.

They frowned at him. “Are you alright?”

Armin wondered what he looked like. His head felt bloodless, empty, a hollow vessel full of nothing but teeth. Finally he gave a jerky nod.

“I… I just can’t believe it.”

Hanji clicked their tongue, grimacing. “Well, at least now we know the idiot’s alive.” They flapped the letter in the air, the brittle sound of paper against paper like a bird’s wing. “And he says there’s more to come. So we’ve got _that_ to look forward to.”

Armin nodded weakly. It was just a strange coincidence, his mind predicting some inevitable result—it was obvious that Eren would contact them, and how could he have done so besides sending a letter? But still the hair on the back of his neck prickled. The dream had felt more real than reality itself, and the shocking clarity of it had made the waking world feel dull and blurred by comparison. The memory of Eren’s face, so perfectly realised in that unearthly place, every hair on his head, the colours that streaked the grey of his eyes, the shape of his mouth when he sighed. Armin couldn’t summon such a clear image of Eren even now, even when he tried.

Most damning of all, though, was that he had not dreamt since that night. When Armin slept, he slept undisturbed. A deep dark empty sleep that swallowed him whole, as the rippling sheet of the sea swallows the sun as it sets. Armin, alone in his bed, too tired even to dream. Not of Eren. Not of anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> this is needlessly long, so if you've made it this far -- well done! and thanks so much for reading. in the story i write that this is a purgation for armin, but i think it's more of a purgation for me (eren/armin has become increasingly fraught, after all)... i hope you enjoyed it! 
> 
> the title comes from seamus heaney's poem ['limbo'](https://genius.com/Seamus-heaney-limbo-annotated).


End file.
